With increasing use of the Internet and its expanding capabilities comes the requirement for specialized hardware, or at least hardware which can be reprogrammed to accommodate various applications. The capabilities of user's PCs vary widely from hard disk space, to operating system, to Internet connection, to various viewers, to sound cards and peripherals, including printers, faxes and various display apparatus.
It is oftentimes very frustrating to the user to attempt to go on-line only to find out that either the program or equipment that he/she is using is incompatible with the application. Installing the appropriate sound card for the particular computer and operating system can cause endless hours of frustration, repeat phone calls to technical support and, in general, can involve bringing the PC directly to a technical support house so that the PC can be appropriately configured for the application.
The compatibility of certain peripherals with particular PC's is also a problem in which the PC drivers must be appropriately configured to handle the peripheral involved. Oftentimes, the manufacturer does not provide a sufficiently reader-friendly manual or provide quick start procedures which would enable the user to set up and enjoy the piece of equipment that he has purchased.
The above problems resolve themselves into a category called "installation problems" which occur most frequently to the uninitiated. It is these users or clients who are most in need of assistance in a user-friendly environment. As described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/801,458 filed Feb. 18, 1997 by Hiroshi Kobata et al., it is possible to detect the demography of the Internet user in which client software is installed at each PC that can detect the infrastructure of the PC. The software which is provided by the provider to the user enables sensing CPU power, hard disk space, the applications running or installed, network connectivity and the log-in history. Since each client software has a unique serial number, sensing the serial number at the server side provides for rapid transfer and loading of a database with infrastructure data which is reported to the server periodically, for instance, every two seconds. At the server side, the database can be udpated frequently to provide instant demographics of the particular user.
The availability of the demography of a particular user, while being useful to the content provider, has a utility in providing consulting services to the user, for instance, to permit installation of peripherals or other equipment.